Where Can I Buy A Thumb Drive VERIFIED
Promotional USB Flash drives are an incredibly versatile marketing tool due to the seemingly infinite varieties of shapes, capacities, and formats. To a first time buyer, this can seem a bit overwhelming. Today we'll simplify the process by breaking down the most important factors to consider when purchasing your custom flash drives.
where can i buy a thumb drive
Not all custom flash drives are created equal. This is especially true with regard to the memory chips that power your USBs. As the central component of your flash drives, ensuring your USBs are equipped with high-quality flash memory is the most important factor when purchasing.
Unfortunately, there are some bad actors in the memory market that supply low quality and even recycled memory chips. Typically these are used in cheap bulk order flash drives you may find on sites like Amazon or Alibaba. In the unfortunate case that you are sold drives with low-quality memory, the best scenario is your USBs read and write speeds suffer and their shelf life is greatly reduced. More likely, however, is that some or all of the drives will quickly become corrupted and cease to function.
Custom flash drives are available in a range of capacities, typically from 64MB to 128GB. Because your cost per drive will increase along with the storage capacity it's important to understand the amount of memory required for your project. To give a better idea of how much data a particular drive can hold we've created this table based on the average file sizes of various media types.
If your drives will be used exclusively as a promotional handout we usually recommend opting for at least 2GB in order for the recipient to have enough storage space to use the drives for an extended period of time. However, it's important to note that the larger a drive the higher its perceived value and the more likely a recipient will be to keep it around longer; allowing for more brand impressions. For more info on this topic, check out our blog on flash drive sizes!
While there are other USB chip formats available, the majority of custom flash drives are offered in USB 2.0 and USB 3.0. These two generations of USB's can each be broken down further into SLC, MLC, and TLC, which we covered in a previous post.
We won't bore you with the technical nitty-gritty, but the main takeaway is that USB 3.0 offers increased speed and reliability. While USB 2.0 is usually fine for simple projects using smaller capacity drives, we start recommending upgrades to USB 3.0 for any drives 8GB or larger. USB 3.0 drives become especially important if you plan on loading large or multiple files.
Once you've got the technical side of things figured out it's time to move onto the exterior of your drives. Starting with the style of your custom flash drives encasement. The primary points of consideration here are:
The print methods typically available for custom flash drives are printing (screen or digital), laser engraving, and heat stamping. When choosing a print method it is important to stay within your brand guidelines.
USB drive data services should be available through any reputable supplier. These services save time and resources for the client by making sure the drives arrive ready to distribute with all technical specifications met. Some common data services and descriptions are listed below, however, for a more complete catalog check out our Data Services Page.
When selecting packaging you'll want to go with a case that complements the style of your chosen drives. Keeping materials consistent is always a smart move i.e. wood drives with wood boxes, metal with metal, etc.
It should also be noted that most custom flash drive vendors operate on a sliding scale, i.e. the more drives you purchase the cheaper the cost per unit. Lastly, be sure to look out for hidden costs like setup fees, or inflated shipping charges.
So you've done your research, selected a seemingly reputable vendor, and designed the perfect drive inside and out. But before you place that order make sure you are being offered a reasonable warranty.
You've put time and effort into this project and it's important to make sure your back is covered should any of the drives malfunction. If your supplier is offering a short, or worse, no warranty there's a good chance it's because they know their drives weren't built to last.
Some of the thumb drive latest features include different transfer speeds. Some types of thumb drive have USB 2.0 connectivity which transfers data at a speed of 60MB/second whereas thumb drives with USB 3.0 connectivity transfer data at a rate of 640 MB/second. No matter the types of thumb drive you buy, the transfer of speed is important to consider in case you have time-sensitive tasks.
Another set of things to consider before buying a USB thumb drive is the storage size. As information is stored in bytes, 1 byte is equal to 8 bits. Similarly, 1MB is equal to 100K bytes, and 1 GB is equal to 1000 MB. These days you can find USB thumb drive types where the storage capacity ranges from 64MB to up to 2TB.
The latest features make thumb drives a great storage device to have, however, make sure that when you buy one for yourself you keep in mind whether it is compatible with your personal computer or laptop or not.
It is important to establish what your primary use will be for the thumb drive. There are many uses of different USB thumb drive types like gifting them to employees, or going paperless in your office or including them for a marketing tool.
In order to be assured that a USB keeps safe data stored on it, you should make sure to use some encryption mechanism or software. So even if your thumb drive falls in the wrong hand they cannot access any information. Similarly, another way to keep safe data stored is by keeping passwords on your files so that if someone with malicious intents accesses your thumb drive your individual files are encrypted.
There is a greater variety of storage options today than ever before: from external hard drives, to cloud storage, to USB types (1.0-3.0, USB-C, and more), it can easily become overwhelming to know the differences.
Thumb drives are powered by a USB interface, which also is the connection used to write, read, and transfer data between the drive and other devices. Thumb drives are smaller, more durable, faster and can hold more data than CD/DVD formats or older, outdated forms of storage like floppy disks. They also are readable by more types of devices used for gaming, as well as smartphones, tablets, and auto entertainment systems.
Make sure you only plug thumb drives into computers or devices you trust. Because many people use public computers, like those at libraries, print shops or schools, it can become unsafe if malware gets transferred onto the drive. Since people use thumb drives to transport data to other people, those who borrow the drives can also have access to harming the drive or stealing information. If you buy a counterfeit thumb drive, it can have malware on it, so be careful to buy only from reputable sellers.
The easiest way to understand the difference between a flash drive and a thumb drive is that while every thumb drive is technically a flash drive, flash drives are not thumb drives because they have capabilities that go beyond thumb drives.
Thumb drives use a solid-state drive (SSD), which does not use magnetic properties, and also uses flash memory (CF) to read, write and store data. The main difference is that thumb drives are less powerful than flash drives, because they are meant for simply copying and transferring data to computers.
Thumb drives are used only for copying and transferring data from USB drives to computers, and are typically available in sizes of 16GB all the way up to 256GB, and with USB 3.0 they can store up to 2TB. There are currently three types of USB: 1.0, 2.0, and 3.0. Thumb drives are always tiny, the size of a thumb and connect via USB.
Kingston DataTraveler and Kingston IronKey USB flash drives provide on-the-go file storage for photos, music, video and more. They are available in both standard and encrypted security for home, school, office and enterprise organisations.
USB flash drives (thumb drives) can also be used to play BARD books. A flash drive is smaller than the cartridges and, unlike the cartridges, it must be inserted into the USB port, which is on the right side of the digital player and has a removable cover.
The digital talking book player has a USB port on the side for digital books that have been downloaded (via BARD) to a flash drive. The port, which has a removable black plastic cover, is on the right side, next to the audio jack.
It is not necessary to buy a very large flash drive. On average, about 7 books will fit on 1 GIG (1,000 MB) of drive space. Therefore a 4 GIG drive will hold an average of between 25-30 books and an 8 GIG drive will hold an average of between 50 and 60 books.
If you do use a flash drive, it is best to start with an empty flash drive and use it only for your digital books. Some flash drive brands, such as Sandisk, include third party software, usually advertisements for various software products. It is best to remove extras like this and start with an empty drive before using BARD. The extra files can cause errors when you attempt to play the downloaded book.
USB flash drives can be purchased in most electronics departments in stores such as Walmart or Staples. They can also be purchased online from sites such as Amazon.com. NLS has recommended Lexar and PNY brands, though we have found that most flash drives work fine as long as you start with an empty drive.
In addition to the USB sticks, Amazon is also listing disc-based versions of Windows 10 Home Builder OEM that sell for a little bit cheaper and ship earlier than the USB drives. The Windows 10 Pro Home System Builder OEM disc is priced at $140 and ships on August 5, while the basic Home OEM disc is just $100 and ships the same day as the Pro disc.
From backing up your data to installing operating systems, it's still incredibly useful. But there are some things you should know before you purchase your next flash drive so that you can get the most out of it. 041b061a72